Lone is the title of Oak‘s debut album, a Portuguese band whose sound is more dark than airy, and the musical background of Pedro Soares (drums) and Guilherme Henriques (vocals and guitar) is no stranger to this because they came to funeral doom after a fruitful experience in black metal with the excellent Gaerea. It’s precisely from the recording sessions of the album Unsettling Whispers that some of the ideas of the duo come to light: having identified a different direction, they decided not to waste them, channelling them into a new project that, according to the musicians themselves, takes inspiration from bands such as Bell Witch, Primitive Man, Convocation and Mournful Congregation, among others. All this pours into an album with the characteristics of Lone, with its four tracks of oscillating moods, as much as Oak‘s sources of inspiration. The album unfolds claustrophobic and sorrowful in the first two notable tracks, Sculpture and Mirror, while the next ones features a greater death component that leads to a rhythmic increase and at the same time a slight decrease in emotional intensity. However, Lone remains a work of great depth, the result of the inspiration of musicians who are still young but at the same time already experienced enough to make us hope for a further leap in quality in their next work.

2019 – Transcending Obscurity Records